AffiliateFEST Session Summary: Engaging the esports demographic

Another interesting discussion point from the hugely popular ‘Esports, Fantasy, Social Betting, Traditional – a look at the future trends’ panel at AffiliateFEST was that of esports’ target audience, and how it presented exciting opportunities that are less prevalent in traditional forms of sports betting. All three panelists were quick to highlight the considerable disposable income that esports players had access to. Read on to find out more.

Fabien Humbert (Pixel.bet)

When it comes to esports, you might have read that it is one of the rare verticals that engages affluent males, and has a reputation as being a male-driven product and industry, but we find also that there is an increasing amount of women playing the game, and we also see a shift in terms of age group.

I’m 38, I grew up with video games, and I just feel that I want to bet on people I follow and on teams I like. I’m very proud of betting on esports, and for affiliates its a unique opportunity to engage an audience via both endemic and non-endemic partnerships. This is because the audience is there and they have available income and they just need to be engaged with the right product, so long as the contact is truthful and the product is good.

Joakim Renman (Scout Gaming)

In the US they did a study, I think it was the Fantasy Sports Trade Association – obviously over there it’s much more developed, they are a few years ahead of us. They have a lot of data and the biggest demographic was male, I think 35-40 years-old.

The one thing that separated them from the rest of the bettors or casino players is that typically they tend to have a higher degree of education, so this is something that is very much different. It means that they typically are in engineering jobs and have a decent salary so they’re typically quite high-spending, intelligent players – which is different from let’s say maybe casino, which is perhaps rather the opposite.

Mikko Miettinen (Consultant)

The same study also referred to the fact that there are actually more female players in other demographics, so definitely there is an an opportunity to reach demographics which are otherwise difficult for operators to reach.